Rouge
by benommenverwirrt
Summary: Landa finds Hellstrom's body in La Louisiane, and with it, the reason for his wrath in killing von Hammersmark. Hellstrom x Landa
1. Chapter 1

It was the well beyond the middle of the night when Landa arrived at the tavern. He had put in a special request to investigate the scene and was arranged to be driven there, and to meet with a truck full of grunts.

He knew Dieter was there. A few nights ago, after a movie screening with Goebbels at a small theatre, they had spent the night together in Landa's borrowed (stolen) Parisian apartment. The next morning Landa accompanied Dieter out to Nadine for his next post. They had driven in silence, both in the back of a familiar black sedan. At one point Dieter had surreptitiously stroked the back of Landa's gloved hand with his fingertips. They had looked at each other, and reacted with synchronized, crooked smirks.

Landa felt an annoying lump in his throat as he slammed the car door and headed across the deserted street for the tavern. The yellowish glow of the lamplights cast several overlapping shadows of him as he walked, each melting into the next under the steps of his boot heels. The half dozen other men saluted briefly, clicking their heels as he passed.

He descended the small spiral staircase quickly, into a horrifically bloody scene. His eyes flitted around the room as he walked through it, and he counted eleven bodies, one of whom wore a bright red armband, and whose body was bent over a table next to a half-full glass of beer, face down in a pool of blood. Taking off his hat for a moment, he held it against himself as he approached the seated figure with a knife jutting out of its neck.

Slowly he ran his fingers across the hilt of the knife. He took it with one hand, and held Dieter's neck down with the other. He tugged the blade out with a sickening, wet noise, and let it drop to the floor with a tinny clatter. His fingers grazed the many wounds at the nape of Dieter's slender neck.

"Did you know him?" a feldwebel behind him asked.

Landa nodded, and opened his mouth. His throat felt dry. He coughed and nodded again, mostly to himself. "Yes."

The other man seemed to know when to leave his superior in peace, and went off into another part of the tavern. Landa himself wandered around the room, then back towards the staircase and watched as the others snapped and gathered dog tags. He had already identified the two basterds in attendance, as well as noted another mysterious man, who had apparently been sitting across the table from Dieter when the shooting began. He stood over Hugo Stiglitz' crumpled corpse, and a wry smile formed on his face.

"Ah, Hugo. You've moved up in the world. Look at you, Obersturmführer. And with your record of insubordination. Truly remarkable." Landa felt the eyes of the feldwebel on his back. He turned to join the other man, standing above the other dead Basterd. "And that one's name is Wilhelm Wicki. He's an Austrian-born Jew, who immigrated to the United States when things began turning sour for the Israelites. They are the two German-born members of the Basterds." As he rattled off the facts numbly, Landa felt his mind ease back into a mechanical, practical, and familiar state.

"They've been known to don German uniforms, to ambush squads. But that doesn't look like this." He paused, feeling the gears in his mind stall for a moment. "This is odd."

The feldwebel looked down at the stone floor. Landa followed his gaze and stared at the pair of high heels beneath him. How had he missed it? He scolded himself quietly for being so distracted. He knelt down, holding the shoe in his hands. "It would appear somebody's missing. Somebody fashionable." Without looking back, he gestured with his finger towards the stairs. The feldwebel shouted for everyone to get out of the building.

Alone in the basement, Landa's eyes flitted around, landing on Dieter's slumped body briefly. The knot in his throat returned. He tried to swallow it, irritably, and forced himself to look away. He noticed a pristine white handkerchief under a bit of rubble. He reached for it with his gloved hand, shaking the wood splinters and dirt off. His throat got tighter when he read the name. Bridget von Hammersmark. So she was responsible for this. A cruel smile found its way onto his face. He kissed the handkerchief. His mind began to whir with ideas.

He tucked the handkerchief into his pocket, and stood up. He paced towards the stairs, but stopped himself. He walked over to Dieter. His hand brushed through the gelled strands of hair, messed up in the action, and thickly matted with blood. He combed out small clumps of the dried blood, and then gingerly lifted the young man's head.

Dieter's face looked pained, his lips parted and nose broken, crooked. Landa's left hand supported the weight of his head and neck, while his right slowly brushed along Dieter's jaw. His skin was cold and clammy, his blood cool and sticky. Carefully, Landa placed his second hand behind Dieter's head, cradling him with probably more gentleness than they had ever shared in life. He felt his fingers wet, and brought them back to his face.

He smudged a bit of blood on each of Dieter's cheeks, massaging it into his pale skin, bringing an uneven, ruddy colour to his face. Landa smiled dryly. He dabbed his fingers again in the blood at the back of his neck, and this time touched them to his lips, colouring them an unnatural crimson. Assessing his gaudy handiwork, Landa held Dieter at full arm's length, cocking his own head to one side. Then, hesitantly, he leaned in and kissed his cold lips. He tasted the saltiness of the blood, and the stale, old beer and cigarettes flavour of his mouth. It felt strange kissing him with no returned reaction.

Landa brushed some of the clumpy hair out of Dieter's closed eyes. He was still beautiful, battered as he was. As a last goodbye, Landa tugged at Dieter's shirt, and then his jacket, straightening them as best he could with his one free hand. He kissed his bloodied forehead, and then lay him back, face-down on the table.

As he stared at the back of Dieter's head for a moment, he suddenly felt a welling up of tight, suffocating anger. His hand reached into his pocket and clenched around the handkerchief. His eyelids fluttered shut as he closed his fist hard enough to feel a sharp pain in his palm. He didn't realize he was holding his breath until he found himself letting out a gasp, his entire chest feeling constricted, his toes curled up inside his boots, his teeth grinding against each other. When he opened his eyes, he saw Dieter's body on the table, and felt nothing but a silent, stinging rage.


	2. Chapter 2

The next night, Landa found himself standing at the side of a road under a huge Nazi flag, saluting high as a convoy of black sedans passed him. He stared blankly out at the night sky, deaf to the din of conversation from the crowd milling about outside the theatre, and the loud rumble of the cars. He had seen von Hammersmark enter earlier that night, and had felt his breath catch. She certainly was beautiful, but when he looked upon her well-proportioned body in the low-cut black dress, long white gloves drawn up her arms delicately, all he could see was Dieter.

Dieter, nude and asleep, unconsciously cuddling up against him like a kitten in bed. Dieter standing at his door in that fine uniform, saluting and clicking his heels together with a wicked, derisive, and irresistible smirk on his face. Dieter crumpled over, with a blade jutting out of the back of his head. As Landa felt his arm go numb, he closed his eyes and with a wash of noise, he returned himself to their last night together.

It had been the middle of the night, and Landa was facing the wall, asleep. He was woken by Dieter, shaking his shoulder. "Hans. Hans," he whispered urgently. His voice was strangled. Landa turned over, about to scold the boy for using his first name, until he saw the expression on his face. Dieter was wide-eyed, his lip trembling. He was all dim shadows in the dark room, but Landa could see his fear.

"What, Dieter?" He cupped the younger man's jaw in his hand.

"Hans..." Dieter's breathing was haggard. He closed his eyes, clamped his mouth shut. Landa heard his quiet whimper.

Landa reached up and took hold of him, drawing him down towards himself. He held his thin, quivering frame against himself and brushed his hair with his fingers. Dieter's arms wrapped around him desperately. "What is wrong with you?" Landa murmured.

"I don't know what it was. A terrible dream."

Landa held him away for a moment. Dieter recoiled, squirming to be embraced again. Before Dieter could protest more, Landa leaned back in and began to cover Dieter's face and neck with kisses. Dieter stopped struggling, and eventually stopped shaking altogether. His body relaxed under Landa's warm lips and hands. It was a while before Landa stopped, his mouth by Dieter's ear, and his arm wrapped around his waist. "Nothing I can't take care of," he said.

Dieter looked him in the eyes and gave him a smile sadder than Landa had realized a smile could ever be. They kissed. He felt that Dieter was desperately trying to communicate something wordless and he felt an itching chagrin at his inability to understand. He felt lost in the alien emotions of this other man. He simply could not figure it out, because there was nothing to figure. Just a feeling, and his lack of empathy to share it.

Quietly, Dieter rested his nose against Landa's. "I'm sorry," was the last thing he said before falling asleep, his hands clasping the older man gently.

Landa opened his eyes. He was on the sidewalk, and the last of the long train of cars was approaching. He felt the pins and needles in his arm when he finally dropped it to his side. He tugged at the bottom of his jacket. He hadn't slept much that last night they shared, his eyes wide open in the darkness, his hand moving over Dieter's fine skin.

As Landa strolled in through the theatre doors, he nodded and smiled at some familiar faces. Quietly he surveyed the bustling theatre. He found von Hammersmark easily, standing next to Aldo Raine in his flashy white tuxedo. Landa accepted a glass of champagne that was handed to him, and downed it quickly. He decided to wait a while, and perhaps collect another drink before approaching the woman.

-

In Shosanna's office, the two sat in silence, the muffled noises of the film sifting through the walls. Landa reveled the silent dread in von Hammersmark's expression as she turned her own tan-coloured shoe over in her hands. It was a moment that seemed to last a glorious, delicious hour. He smiled generously, putting out his hand expectantly. She slowly handed it over. He felt himself trembling in excitement.

He slipped the heel of the shoe onto her delicate foot. He sat straight up, a wide smile on his face. Her eyes lifted from her foot to his face. "Voila," he said calmly. "What's that American expression? If the shoe fits, you must wear it." He felt the slightest bit of a spraining ache in his cheeks from grinning as he was. His heart raced as her eyes moistened ever so slightly. She sniffed derisively. He felt his pulse in his temple, and in his fingertips.

Her braced smile and shrug made him glow with anticipation. "What now, Colonel?"

He had meant to say something more, but instead his body lunged forward, his hands flying to her pretty little throat. He felt his knees knock hard against the wood floor on either side of her body. The sensation of her skin twisting under his hands replaced the thrill of the moment with an absolute disgust and rage. He felt an irresistible craze and compulsion to destroy, and while she kicked and choked beneath him, he felt every inch of himself filled from the inside with wrath. He felt animal grunts escape his lips as he gripped her as hard as he could, knocking her head against the ground. He squeezed his eyes shut and gasped with the exertion, hearing nothing but her strangled cries and the thud of her cast against the table leg.

Before he had felt it really begun, it was over. She lay limp under his hands, her eyes open wide. It took a moment for him to take his grip off her throat.

He and Dieter had played with each other - after the absolute surprise and terror of the first time Landa had tested out his fetish, Dieter had grown a morbid obsession with the act of choking that Landa was all too happy to oblige. This was nothing of the sort. He had wanted, more desperately than he could remember wanting anything, to destroy her, and he felt no pleasure in the act.

Straddling her dead body, he pushed his hair up and out of his face, panting slightly. His hands felt like they were on fire, and he could tell his face was flushed. He sat back on his heels, his hands resting on his thighs for a moment.

When he stood up, he felt slightly dizzy, his head heavier than it should be. He leaned one hand against his desk table. He closed his eyes, straightened his jacket, and took a deep breath in, but could only smell what wasn't there. The ebb of his anger was replaced by a total and comfortingly familiar dull, numb, nothingness.

He opened his eyes. He found it in himself to smile as he reached for the phone.


End file.
